Bowling is one of the oldest and most widely played of the world's games. Its history has been traced back to the Stone Age, Egyptians, and Romans. Today, one out of three Americans, or over 72 million people, bowl for recreation or competition.
Since approximately the 1940's, bowling pins have typically comprised a block of hard maple wood. Maple is selected for use in bowling pins both for its durability and for the characteristic sound it makes when struck with a bowling ball. A water based undercoating is typically placed on the wood prior to applying a white coat of paint, followed by a clear coat of lacquer. Red epoxy stripes are then placed horizontally along the base or belly of the pin.
Due to their frequent and extensive use, the necks and bellies of bowling pins eventually become cracked. Once damaged, bowling pins can sometimes be refurbished. However, the pins usually just get discarded in dumpsites or landfills. In a typical bowling alley, bowling pins will get replaced about once per year. If a bowling alley had, for instance, thirty lanes, this would amount to the disposal of approximately six hundred bowling pins in just one year. Based on this large number of discarded pins from just one bowling alley, it is easy to appreciate the value of finding a way to recycle these pins instead of allowing them to accumulate in dumps and landfills, especially in light of the environmental concern of the ever decreasing amount of space in landfills.
The present inventor has now discovered a novel means for recycling bowling pins that would otherwise be discarded as garbage by bowling alleys. It has been surprisingly found that the inner wood core of bowling pins comprises intricately patterned wood. This wood is conducive to being formed into a wide variety of artistic projects.
It is therefore a principal object of this invention to provide a novel means of recycling bowling pins to decrease the amount of waste in landfills.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a method and means for making artistic projects using the inner wood core of a bowling pin.
It is still a further object of the present invention to provide a method and means for making artistic projects using the inner wood core of a bowling pin which is easy and inexpensive.
The method and means of accomplishing each of the above objectives as well as others will become apparent from the detailed description of the invention which follows hereafter.